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2 JOHN E. ROEMER Should Marxists To work at the bidding and for the profit of another... is.not... a satisfactory state to human beings of educated intelligence, who have ceased to think themselves naturally inferior to those whom they serve. J. S. Mill, Principles of Political Economy The capitalist mode of production... rests on the fact that the material conditions of production are in the hands of non-workers in the form of property in capital and land, while the masses are only owners of the personal conditions of production, of labour power. If the elements of production are so distributed, then the presentday distribution of the means of consumption results automatically. Karl Marx, Selected Works I. MOTIVATIONS FOR EXPLOITATION THEORY Marxian exploitation is defined as the unequal exchange of labor for goods: the exchange is unequal when the amount of labor embodied in the goods which the worker can purchase with his income (which usually consists only of wage income) is less than the amount of labor he expended to earn that income. Exploiters are agents who can command with their income more labor embodied in goods than the labor they performed; for exploited agents, the reverse is true. If the concept of embodied labor is defined so that the total labor performed by a population in a certain time period is equal to the labor embodied in the goods I am indebted to the following individuals for many discussions, comments, and disagreements: G. A. Cohen, Jon Elster, Joseph Ostroy, Amartya Sen, Philippe Van Parijs, Erik Wright; and to participants in seminars where these ideas were presented, at the University of Oslo, the University of Copenhagen, Yale University, the University of Chicago, the I983 Maison des Sciences de l'homme Colloquium in London, and the I984 Colloque Marx in Paris organized by the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales.

3 3I Should Marxists comprising the net national product (NNP), and if the NNP is parcelled out to the members of the population in some way, then there will be (essentially) two groups: the exploiters and the exploited, as defined above. (I say "essentially" because there may be some ambiguity; an agent may be able to purchase different bundles of goods, some bundles of which embody more labor than he worked, and other bundles of which embody less labor than he worked. This gives rise to a "gray area" of agents whom we might wish to consider neither exploited nor exploiting.') Thus, exploitation theory views goods as vessels of labor, and calculates labor accounts for people by comparing the "live" labor they expend in production with the "dead" labor they get back in the vessels. Exploitation is an aspect of the pattern of redistribution of labor which occurs through the process of agents "exchanging" their current productive labor for social labor congealed in goods received. It may not always be easy or even possible to define the content of dead labor in the vessels, as when labor is heterogeneous or joint production of many goods from the same production process exists. There is a large literature on these questions, which shall not concern me here. For this article, I assume labor is homogeneous. It is important to note that exploitation is not defined relationally. The statement "A exploits B" is not defined, but rather "A is an exploiter" and "B is exploited." Exploitation, as I conceive it, refers to the relationship between a person and society as a whole as measured by the transfer of the person's labor to the society, and the reverse transfer of society's labor to the person, as embodied in goods the person claims. What are the uses of exploitation theory? Why is it considered the cornerstone of Marxian social science by many writers? More directly, what positive or normative conclusions might we draw about capitalism from observing that workers are exploited under capitalism? I can identify four main uses or justifications of exploitation theory: (i) the accumulation theory: exploitation of workers explains profits and accumulation under capitalism; it is the secret of capitalist expansion. (2) the domination theory: exploitation is intimately linked to the domination of workers by capitalists, especially at the point of production, and domination is an evil. i. For a discussion of the gray area of agents, see John E. Roemer, A General Theory of Exploitation and Class (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, I982), chap. 4.

4 32 Philosophy & Public Affairs (3) the alienation theory: exploitation is a measure of the degree to which people are alienated under capitalism. The root of alienation is the separation of one's labor from oneself. If one's labor is put into goods which are produced for exchange (not for use by oneself or one's community), that constitutes alienation. Exploitation occurs because some people alienate more labor than others. It is differential alienation. (4) the inequality theory: exploitation is a measure and consequence of the underlying inequality in the ownership of the means of production, an inequality which is unjustified. There is another theory which is, I think, a special case of (4), and so will be numbered: (4') the expropriation theory: exploitation is a measure of expropriation, of one agent owning part of the product which should rightfully belong to another agent. These four (or five) proposed explanations for our interest in exploitation theory are usually confounded. They should not be, however, because they constitute different claims. Adherents to exploitation theory tend to emphasize some of (i) through (4) when others of the list become subjected to embarrassments or counterexamples. I will argue that in the general case none of (i) through (4) can be sustained; there is, in general, no reason to be interested in exploitation theory, that is, in tallying the surplus value accounts of labor performed versus labor commanded in goods purchased. My arguments against (i) through (4) are, briefly, these: (i) all commodities are exploited under capitalism, not only labor power, and so the exploitation of labor does not explain profits; concerning (2), domination is an important issue under capitalism, but exploitation is irrelevant for its study; concerning (3), differential alienation can be measured using surplus value accounts, but I do not think such alienation is interesting unless it is a consequence of unequal ownership of the means of production. We are thus led to (4) which, I think, is the closest explanation for Marxists' interest in exploitation; but in the general case, I will show inequality in ownership of the means of production, even when ethically indefensible, is not properly measured by exploitation. In particular, it can happen in theory that those who own very little of the means of production are exploiters and those who own a lot are exploited.

5 33 Should Marxists Hence exploitation (the transfer of surplus value) is not a proper reflection of underlying property relations. There is an apparent similarity between this iconoclastic posture toward exploitation theory, and the attacks on the labor theory of value which have accelerated in the past decade.2 In the final section, I evaluate this similarity, and claim it is quite shallow. While the labor theory of value almost always gives incorrect insights, exploitation theory in many cases coincides with a deeper ethical position-although on its own terms it does not provide a justification for that position. My verdict will be that exploitation theory is a domicile that we need no longer maintain: it has provided a home for raising a vigorous family who now must move on. The reader should bear in mind that throughout the article "exploit" has a technical meaning, the unequal exchange of labor. When I claim that exploitation theory is without foundation, I do not mean capitalism is just. I believe capitalism is unjust (or ethically exploitative) because of sharply unequal ownership of the means of production. What I show in Section 5 is that this inequality is not necessarily coextensive with the transfer of surplus value from workers to capitalists, and therefore it is inappropriate to ground an equality-based morality on the technical measure of exploitation. If I occasionally use "exploitation" in its ethical as opposed to technical sense, the word will be italicized as above. II. DEFINITION OF TERMS: A SIMPLE MODEL I have outlined above an identification problem with respect to the motivation for our interest in exploitation. In this section, this identification problem will be posed as starkly and schematically as possible, by exhibiting a simple model in which exploitation emerges simultaneously with accumulation, domination, differential alienation, and inequality in ownership of the means of production. This section, therefore, serves to define terms and to pose the problem more precisely. 2. See, for example, Joan Robinson, An Essay on Marxian Economics (New York: St. Martin's Press, I966); Michio Morishima, Marx's Economics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, I973); Ian Steedman, Marx after Sraffa (London: New Left Books, I977); John E. Roemer, Analytical Foundations of Marxian Economic Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, I98I); Paul A. Samuelson, "Understanding the Marxian notion of exploitation: a summary of the so-called transformation problem between Marxian values and competitive prices," Journal of Economic Literature 9 (I97I): I; Jon Elster, Making Sense of Marx (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).

6 34 Philosophy & Public Affairs Imagine an economy with i,ooo persons and two goods: corn and leisure. There are two technologies for producing corn, called the Farm and the Factory. The Farm is a labor-intensive technology in which no seed capital is required, but corn is produced from pure labor (perhaps by cultivating wild corn). The Factory technology produces corn with labor plus capital-the capital is seed corn. The technologies are given by: Farm: 3 days labor -* i corn output Factory: i day labor + i seed corn -* 2 corn output Corn takes a week to grow (so the seed is tied up in the ground for that long). The total stock of seed corn in this society is 500 corn, and each agent owns 1/2 corn. The agents have identical preferences which are these: each wants to consume i corn net output per week. After consuming his i corn, the agent will consume leisure. If he can get more than i corn for no more labor, he will be even happier: but preferences are lexicographic in that each wishes to minimize labor expended subject to earning enough to be able to consume i corn per week, and not to run down his stock of capital. There is an obvious equilibrium in this economy. The typical agent works up his 1/2 corn in the Factory in 1/2 day, which will bring him i corn at the end of the week. Having fully employed his seed capital, he must produce another 1/2 corn somewhere., to replace his capital stock: this he does by working in the Farm technology for i'/2 days. Thus he works 2 days and produces i corn net output. Every agent does this. Indeed, 2 days is the labor time socially necessary to produce a unit of corn, given that this society must produce i,ooo corn net each week. It is the labor embodied in a unit of corn. At this equilibrium there is no exploitation, since labor expended by each agent equals labor embodied in his share of the net output. Nor is there accumulation, for society has the same endowments at the beginning of next week; nor is there domination at the point of production, since no one works for anyone else; nor is there differential alienation of labor, since there is not even trade; and, of course, there is equality in initial assets. Now change the initial distribution of assets, so that each of 5 agents owns I 00 seed corn, and the other 995 own nothing but their labor power (or, to be consistent with our former terminology, nothing but their leisure). Preferences remain as before. What is the competitive equilibrium?

7 35 Should Marxists One possibility is that each of the 995 assetless agents works 3 days on the Farm, and each of the 5 wealthy ones works i day in the Factory. But this is not an equilibrium, since there is a lot of excess capital sitting around which can be put to productive use. In particular, the wealthy ones can offer to hire the assetless to work in the Factory on their capital stock. Suppose the "capitalists" offer a corn wage of i corn for 2 days labor. Then each capitalist can employ 50 workers, each for 2 days, on his ioo seed corn capital. Each worker produces 4 corn in the Factory with 2 days labor. Thus each capitalist has corn revenues of 200 corn: of that, I00 corn replace the seed used up, 50 are paid in wages, and 50 remain as profits. Capital is now fully employed. But this may or may not be an equilibrium wage: only 5 x 50 = 250 workers have been employed, and perhaps the other 745 peasants would prefer to work in the Factory for a real wage of 1/2 corn per day instead of slaving on the Farm at a real wage of 1/3 corn per day. If so, the real wage in the Factory will be bid down until the assetless agents are indifferent between doing unalienated, undominated labor on the Farm, and alienated, dominated labor in the Factory. Let us say, for the sake of simplicity, this equilibrating real wage is one corn for 2'/2 days Factory labor. (In the absence of a preference for Farm life over Factory life, the real wage will equilibrate at i corn for 3 days labor, that is, at the peasant's labor opportunity cost of corn, since in this economy there is a scarcity of capital relative to the labor which it could efficiently employ.) Now we have accumulation (or at least much more production than before, which I assume is not all eaten by the capitalists), since each capitalist gets a profit of I00-40 = 6o corn net, and each worker or peasant gets, as in the first economy, i corn net. Hence total net product is (5 x 6o) = I,295 corn, instead of I,000 corn as before. We also have domination since some agents are employed by others, and by hypothesis, this gives rise to domination at the point of production. Differential alienation has emerged, since some agents (the workers) alienate a large part of their labor to the capitalists, while the capitalists and the peasants alienate no labor (although they work different amounts of time). Exploitation has emerged since the workers and peasants all expend more labor than is "embodied" in the corn they get, while the five capitalists work zero days and each gets 6o corn. Hence, the four phenomena in question emerge simultaneously with the exploitation, in the passage from the "egalitarian" economy to the

8 36 Philosophy & Public Affairs "capitalist" economy. With respect to expropriation, we might also say that it has emerged in the second economy. III. THE ACCUMULATION THEORY The unique positive (as opposed to normative) claim among (i) through (4) is the claim that our interest in exploitation is because surplus labor is the source of accumulation and profits. Explanation (i) uses "exploit" in the sense of "to turn a natural resource to economic account; to utilize," while theories (2), (3) and (4) use "exploit" in the sense of "to make use of meanly or unjustly for one's own advantage or profit."3 A current in Marxism maintains that exploitation is not intended as a normative concept, but as an explanation of the modus operandi of capitalism; the production of profits in a system of voluntary exchange and labor transfers is the riddle which must be explained, and which Marx posed in Capital, Volume I. The discovery that exploitation of labor is the source of profits answers the riddle. (Even though all commodities exchange "at their values," a surplus systematically emerges at one point in the labor process. For the value which labor produces is greater than what labor power is worth, and hence what it is paid.) Indeed, the claim that exploitation theory should not be construed as normative theory has its source in Marx, as Allen Wood points out.4 The formal theorem supporting position (i) was first presented by Okishio and Morishima,5 and the latter coined it the Fundamental Marxian Theorem (FMT). It demonstrates that in quite general economic models, exploitation of labor exists if and only if profits are positive. The FMT is robust; the error lies in the inference that its veracity implies that profits are explained by the exploitation of labor. For, as many writers have now observed, every commodity (not just labor power) is exploited under capitalism. Oil, for example, can be chosen to be the value numeraire, and embodied oil values of all commodities can be calculated. One can prove that profits are positive if and only if oil is exploited, in the sense that the amount of oil embodied in producing one unit of oil is less than one unit of oil-so oil gives up into production more than it 3. Definitions of exploitation are from Webster's Dictionary (I966). 4. Allen Wood, Karl Marx (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, I98I), chap Morishima, Marx's Economics. Many authors have since studied and generalized the Fundamental Marxian Theorem.

9 37 Should Marxists requires back.6 Thus the exploitation of labor is not the explanation for profits and accumulation any more than is the exploitation of oil or corn or iron. The motivation for the privileged choice of labor as the exploitation numeraire must lie elsewhere, as I have argued in other articles.7 In trying to locate the specialness of labor which would justify its choice as the exploitation numeraire, one is inexorably led into arguments that labor is the unique commodity which can be "dominated" or "alienated"- the terrain of argument shifts to a defense of theories like (2) and (3). The dialogue goes something like this, where "Marxist" is defending theory (I): Marxist: The exploitation of labor accounts for the existence of profits under capitalism. That's why we are interested in exploitation theory, not as normative theory. Antagonist: But oil is exploited too under capitalism, and its exploitation is, as well, necessary and sufficient for profits. So labor's exploitation does not explain profits. Marxist: No, you are not entitled to say oil is exploited, because oil is not dominated, oil is not alienated from its possessor in any interesting sense during production, one's oil is not a joint product with one's self, there are no problems in extracting the oil from the "oil power." Only labor has these properties and hence only labor is exploited. Antagonist: Initially you claimed your interest in exploitation theory was as a positive theory only. But you rule out describing oil as exploited for reasons that can only imply exploitation has normative content. For surely the domination and alienation of labor and the attachment of labor to the self are germane not for evaluating whether labor is or is not 6. This Generalized Commodity Exploitation Theorem has been proved and/or observed by many authors, including Josep Ma. Vegara, Economia Politica y Modelos Multisectoriales (Madrid: Editorial Tecnos, I979); Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, "Structure and practice in the labor theory of value," Review of Radical Political Economics I2, no. 4 (Winter I98I): I-26; Robert P. Wolff, "A Critique and Reinterpretation of Marx's Labor Theory of Value," Philosophy & Public Affairs I0, no. 2 (Spring I98I): 89-I20; Roemer, General Theory, Appendix 6.i; Paul A. Samuelson, "The Normative and Positivistic Inferiority of Marx's Values Paradigm," Southern Economic Journal 49, no. i (I982): I i-i8. 7. See J. E. Roemer, "R. P. Wolff's Reinterpretation of Marx's Labor Theory of Value: Comment," Philosophy & Public Affairs I2, no. I (Winter I983): 7o-83; J. E. Roemer, "Why Labor Classes?" (U.C. Davis Working Paper, I982).

10 38 Philosophy & Public Affairs used in the sense of "turning a natural resource to economic account," but only for deciding whether labor is "made use of meanly or unjustly for [one's own] advantage or profit." You claim to be interested in labor's exploitation only because labor is exploited in the first sense, but rule out calling other commodities exploited because they are not exploited in the second sense. I take it, then, your true justification for describing labor as exploited must lie in one of the normative theories of exploitation. I conclude position (i) cannot be supported as the reason for our interest in exploitation theory.8 Despite his avowed lack of interest in a normative justification of exploitation theory, the Marxist in the dialogue can only rescue exploitation theory from the jaws of the Generalized Commodity Exploitation Theorem by appealing to a special claim labor has on wearing the exploitation mantle, a claim that seems only to be defensible on grounds of the unfairness or unjustness or nastiness of the conditions of labor's utilization. As G. A. Cohen writes,"... Marxists do not often talk about justice, and when they do they tend to deny its relevance, or they say that the idea of justice is an illusion. But I think justice occupies a central place in revolutionary Marxist belief. Its presence is betrayed by particular judgments Marxists make, and by the strength of feeling with which they make them."9 And I would add, it is only by appealing to conceptions of justice that exploitation theory can be defended as interesting. IV. THE DOMINATION THEORY For the remainder of this article, my concern will be to investigate the possibility of defending an interest in exploitation theory for the light it sheds on the three issues of domination, differential alienation, and inequality in ownership of the means of production. My interest in these three issues is normative. If, for example, exploitation can be shown to 8. R. P. Wolff, "A Critique and Reinterpretation," while recognizing that the exploitation of labor cannot explain profits, offers a reason other than domination and alienation to be interested in exploitation; as I have argued against his proposal elsewhere (Roemer,"R. P. Wolffs Reinterpretation of Marx's Labor Theory of Value"), I will not repeat that discussion. 9. G. A. Cohen, "Freedom, Justice and Capitalism," New Left Review, no. 125 (I98I). For an opposite point of view, see Wood, Karl Marx.

11 39 Should Marxists imply domination of workers by capitalists, and if we argue independently that domination is unjust, then exploitation theory provides at least a partial theory of the injustice of capitalism. (Only a partial theory, since other practices besides domination might be unjust, which exploitation theory would not diagnose.) Identifying the main evil of capitalism as domination, and even extraeconomic domination, is a theme of some contemporary Marxist work. 10 It is not my purpose to evaluate this claim (with which I disagree), but rather to postulate an ethical interest in domination, and ask whether that justifies an interest in exploitation theory. It is necessary to distinguish two types of domination by capitalists over workers, domination in the maintenance and enforcement of private property in the means of production, and domination at the point of production (the hierarchical and autocratic structure of work). The line between the two cannot be sharply drawn, but let us superscript the two types domination' and domination2, respectively. I will argue that each of domination' and domination2 implies exploitation, but not conversely. Hence if our interest is in domination, there is no reason to invoke exploitation theory, for the direction of entailment runs the wrong way. Domination may be a bad thing, but there is no reason to run the circuitous route of exploitation theory to make the point. In certain situations, exploitation requires domination', but since we cannot know these cases by analyzing the exploitation accounts alone, there is no reason to invoke exploitation if, indeed, our interest in exploitation is only as a barometer of domination'. Furthermore, our interest in domination' is essentially an interest in the inequality of ownership of the means of production, for the purpose of domination' is to enforce that ownership pattern. I maintain if it is domination' one claims an interest in, it is really inequality (however defined) in the ownership of the means of production which is the issue. Thus, an ethical interest in domination' shifts the discussion to the validity of position (4), while an interest in domination2 has as its source the moral sentiments reflected in the epigraph from J. S. Mill, in the analogy implied by the term wage slavery. Domination' enforces property relations in two ways. The obvious way io. Ellen Meiksins Wood, "The separation of the economic and political in capitalism," New Left Review, no. 127 (May-June I98I); Bowles and Gintis, "Structure and Practice"; Erik Olin Wright, "The Status of the Political in the Concept of Class Structure," Politics and Society II, no. 3 (I982): 32I-42.

12 40 Philosophy & Public Affairs is through police power protecting assets, preventing their expropriation by those not owning them. Clearly, since differential ownership of the means of production gives rise to exploitation, this form of domination implies exploitation. The second way domination' enters into property relations is to give property its value in the absence of perfect competition. A property right is not a physical asset, it is the right to appropriate the income stream flowing from a certain physical asset. (As C. B. Mac- Pherson points out, it is peculiarly under capitalism that physical assets are confused with the property rights that are related to them.") In the absence of perfect competition, the value of property is not defined by the market. Under perfect competition, all agents are price (and wage) takers, no one has power to bargain or to set the terms of trade. Prices in equilibrium clear markets. Assuming the equilibrium is unique (a heroic assumption), property values are then well-defined. But in the absence of perfect competition, there is room for bargaining, and the value of one's property rights may well be determined by extraeconomic domination.12 (It is more accurate to say values are not defined by the traditional economic data, and at present there is no accepted theory of bargaining under imperfect competition which can determine them.) This is typically the case where markets for particular assets or commodities are thin. The state or landlord which (or who) controls the irrigation canal (an indivisible commodity, with a very thin market) can exact a monopolistic price for its use, giving rise to high peasant exploitation. Due to thin credit markets in rural areas of the underdeveloped countries, local landlords are able to charge usurious interest rates to peasants for consumption loans, increasing the rate of exploitation. To the extent that one thinks incomes from different types of labor under capitalism are politically determined, in order to assert control over the work force,13 rather than as a reflection of relative scarcities, then I I. C. B. MacPherson, Property: Mainstream and Critical Positions (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, I 978), chap. I. I 2. Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, "The Power of Capital: On the Inadequacy of the Conception of the Capitalist Economy as 'Private,' " Philosophical Forum I4, nos. 3-4 (I983) claim that even in perfect competition, if there are multiple equilibria, then property values are not well-defined and there is room for domination, in determining which set of equilibrium prices will prevail. This is a dubious assertion. If indeed no agent has economic power, in the sense perfect competition postulates, then which of several multiple equilibria will rule is not due to domination, but is simply an unanswerable question, given the information in the model. I3. See Richard Edwards, Contested Terrain: The Transformation of the Workplace in America (New York: Basic Books, I979).

13 4I Should Marxists domination' plays a role in determining exploitation. Domination' may determine what certificates people receive, through channeling them into different educational careers, and those certificates determine the value of the person's labor services.14 In these cases, the peculiarity of domination', what contrasts it with feudal domination, is its effect on setting the value of services or assets in the market (and thereby influencing the degree of exploitation). Although the power relation inherent in domination' is finally realized through markets, contrasted with feudalism, it is similar to feudal exploitation, since one agent has power over another which he would not have in a fully developed, perfectly competitive market economy. Thus this exercise of domination' is not the essence of capitalism, if capitalism is essentially a competitive system. Certainly Marx's proclaimed task was to explain capitalism in its purest form: where the values of all commodities are explained by "fair trades," that is, values commanded on perfectly competitive markets. In certain situations, conversely, exploitation implies domination'; I mean the trivial observation that exploitation is the consequence of differential ownership of the means of production which, in many cases, the exploited would alter were it not for police power preventing them from doing so. (Hence, if we observe exploitation, there must be domination'.) It has been maintained, however, that exploitation need not imply domination'; Adam Przeworski argues that in some Western European countries workers have the power to expropriate capitalists, and hence they are not dominated', but they do not, because it is not in their perceived interests to do so.'5 Moreover, in Sections 4 and 5 below I show that exploitation can exist without differential ownership of the means of production; therefore, presumably exploitation can exist even though all agents accept as just the property rights, and so domination' (police power to protect property) need not attain. In summary, my claims concerning domination' are these: (a) with respect to the exercise of power under conditions of imperfect competition, domination' exists and is perhaps important in capitalism, and more so in less developed capitalism, but it is characteristically noncapitalist, that is, being due to imperfect competition and thin markets; (b) it implies exploitation, but that provides no reason to be interested in exploitation theory, if our concern I4. Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America (New York: Basic Books, I976). I5. Adam Przeworski, "Material Interests, Class Compromise and the Transition to Socialism," Politics and Society io, no. 2 (I980).

14 42 Philosophy & Public Affairs is really with domination'; (c) in some cases, perhaps the archetypical case, exploitation implies domination' in the sense of police power protecting property, but in that case it is not the domination that concerns us but the unjust inequality in the distribution of the means of production. If (c) is our reason for justifying an interest in exploitation theory, we are invoking position (4) and not position (2), since domination' in this case is only the means to maintain the unequal distribution of assets which is the basis for our condemnation of capitalism. The more usual conception of domination is the second one; domination2 does not involve the protection or creation of value in capitalist property, but rather the hierarchical, nondemocratic relations in capitalist workplaces. Of course, this hierarchy presumably creates (additional) profits, and therefore leads to an increased valuation of capitalist property, and hence is similar to the role of domination'; but in discussing domination2 I am specifically concerned with the domination of the worker's self, the relation of subordination he enters into with the capitalist when he enters the workplace. While our moral opposition to domination' shares its foundation with our moral opposition to feudalism, our opposition to domination2 shares its foundation with our opposition to slavery. (The analogy is inexact, since many feudal practices involved domination2 over the selves of serfs; for the sake of the analogy, I envisage "pure feudalism" as a system where feudal dues are paid because of extraeconomic coercion, but the serf never sees or interacts personally with the lord.) Although domination2 can create the conditions for profitability and therefore exploitation of labor, the converse is in general not the case. Exploitation does not imply the existence of domination2. I showed in my book that the class and exploitation relations of a capitalist economy using labor markets can be precisely replicated with a capitalist economy using credit markets,i6 where domination2 does not exist. In Labor Market Capitalism, agents optimize, given their endowments of property, and end up choosing either to sell labor power, to hire labor power, or to produce for the market using their own labor power on their own account. Agents segregate themselves into five classes, based on the particular ways they relate to the labor market. The Class Exploitation Correspondence Principle demonstrates that everyone who optimizes by selling labor i6. For a detailed presentation of this material, see Roemer, General Theory, pts. i and 2. For a summary, see J. Roemer, "New Directions in the Marxian Theory of Exploitation and Class," Politics and Society ii, no. 3 (I982):

15 43 Should Marxists power is exploited, and everyone who optimizes by hiring labor is an exploiter. It was assumed in that analysis that agents make the decision to sell labor entirely on economic grounds; they do not calculate as part of their objective the disutility associated with being dominated2, with working under a boss. In Credit Market Capitalism, there is no labor market, but a market for lending capital at an interest rate. At the equilibrium, some agents will lend capital, some will borrow capital, some will use their own capital for production. Again, agents segregate themselves into five classes defined by the particular ways they relate to the credit market. Again, the Class Exploitation Correspondence Principle holds: any agent who optimizes by borrowing capital will turn out to be exploited. Moreover, the Isomorphism Theorem states that these two hypothetical capitalisms are identical insofar as class and exploitation properties are concerned. An agent who, under Labor Market Capitalism, was a member of a labor-selling class, and was therefore exploited, will be a member of a capital-borrowing class in Credit Market Capitalism, and will be exploited. This result replays the Wicksell-Samuelson theme that it is irrelevant, for the distribution of income, whether capital hires labor or labor hires capital; the mild sin of omission of these writers was not to point out that propertyless agents are exploited in either case, whether they be the hirers or sellers of the factor. In Labor Market Capitalism there is domination2, but in Credit Market Capitalism, there is not.17 Moreover, an even sharper example may be constructed of an economy possessing no labor or credit market, but only markets for produced commodities which are traded among individual producers. In such an economy exploitation will result at equilibrium, in general, if there is initial inequality in the ownership of means of production. But in this exchange and production economy, there are no relations of domination2 of any kind; the exploitation can be accomplished through "invisible trade." It is possible to argue that there is exploitation without class in this economy, since all producers enjoy the same relation to the means of production: they work only on their own.i8 Indeed, this example may be taken as the I7. I am speaking of a pure form of Credit Market Capitalism; in actual credit markets, lenders often supervise debtors if sufficient collateral is not available, or if there would be problems in enforcing collection of collateral. I8. For the details of this economy see General Theory, chap. I; for a simple example, see J. E. Roemer, "Are Socialist Ethics Consistent with Efficiency?" Philosophical Forum I4, nos. 3-4 (I983):

16 44 Philosophy & Public Affairs archetype of exploitation, or unequal exchange, between countries where neither labor nor capital flows across borders. Differential initial endowments of countries will give rise to exploitation in trade, even when no relations of domination2 through international labor migration or capital lending take place. 19 The previous paragraphs claim to demonstrate that the existence of exploitation does not imply the existence of domination2, and hence our putative interest in exploitation theory cannot be justified on grounds of a more basic interest in domination2. Here I follow Marx, in modeling capitalism as a system where there are no market frictions, but where goods exchange competitively at their market-determined prices. In particular, it seems appropriate, for this thought experiment, to assume all contracts are costlessly enforceable and can be perfectly delineated. For Marx wished to show the economic viability of capitalism in the absence of cheating: and that means contracts are well-defined and observed by all. Now the principal reason domination2 exists is that the labor contract is not costlessly enforceable, nor can it be perfectly delineated. This point is usually put more graphically when Marxists speak of the problems of extracting the labor from the labor power. Indeed, the contemporary labor process literature addresses the methods capitalism (and perhaps socialism) has developed to solve this problem.20 But for our thought experiment, we are entitled to assume the delivery of labor (not simply labor power) for the wage is as simple and enforceable a transaction as the delivery of an apple for a dime. In such a world, exploitation continues to exist, but domination2 does not. And I claim Marxists would be almost as critical of such a perfect capitalism as they are of existing capitalism, replete as the real thing is with domination2 due to the contract enforcement problem. Indeed, Marxists consider sharecroppers and borrowers to be exploited (unjustly so, that is), even when domination2 is absent from those contracts. The Isomorphism Theorem I quoted was an attempt to develop this point formarly, that in a world absenting deleterious domination2 effects, the exploitation observed in labor markets would be ig. See J. E. Roemer, "Unequal Exchange, Labor Migration and International Capital Flows: A Theoretical Synthesis," in Marxism, the Soviet Economy and Central Planning: Essays in Honor of Alexander Erlich, ed. Padma Desai (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, I983). 20. For example, see Harry Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capital (New York: Monthly Review Press, I974) and Richard Edwards, Contested Terrain.

17 45 Should Marxists indistinguishable from that observed in credit or sharecropping arrangements.21 A criticism of the Isomorphism Theorem can be made as follows. If one wishes to study the relationship between domination2 and exploitation, then the model of the Class Exploitation Correspondence Theorem and the Isomorphism Theorem is inappropriate, because it is there assumed that domination2 is not an issue to the people involved. In reply to this point, I have worked out a revised model (which is available in detail from the author) where domination2 effects exist. These are captured as follows: each agent has an initial endowment of means of production, which takes on a value as finance capital at given prices. He seeks to maximize a utility function of income and work performed. It matters to him whether the work is performed in his own shop, or under a boss. Thus, the utility function has three arguments: income, labor performed on one's own account, and wage labor performed for others. Subject to his capital constraint, determined by initial asset holdings and prices, each agent maximizes utility. The domination2 postulate is that every agent would rather work on his own account than for a boss, and this is reflected in the utility function. At equilibrium, agents sort themselves into five classes: Class I: those who only hire others Class 2: those who hire others and work on their own account Class 3: those who only work on their own account Class 4: those who work on their own account and sell wage labor Class 5: those who only sell wage labor. I say an agent is dominated if he maximizes utility subject to constraint by placing himself in classes 4 or 5, and he is dominating if he optimizes by being in classes i or 2. The theorem, which can be called the Exploitation-Domination Correspondence, states that any dominated agent is exploited and any dominating agent is an exploiter. The converse, however, does not hold. In particular, agents in class position 3 will often be e. ther exploited or exploiting, but they are neither dominated nor dominating. It is therefore difficult to justify an interest in exploitation if our real 2I. Further discussion of some of these issues can be found in J. E. Roemer, "Reply," Politics and Society ii, no. 3 (1982):

18 46 Philosophy & Public Affairs concern is domination2, for two reasons. First, domination2 is directly observable (simply look at who hires whom) and exploitation is not. Hence, calculating whether an agent is exploited (a difficult calculation, necessitating all sorts of technological information to compute socially necessary labor times) would be a strangely circuitous route to concluding he is dominated2. Secondly, it is not true that an exploited agent is necessarily dominated or that an exploiter is necessarily dominating; the Exploitation- Domination Correspondence states the converse. Exploited (exploiting) agents who are not dominated (dominating) would have a confused ethical status if our judgment about them is made on the basis of exploitation, but our interest in exploitation is as a proxy for domination. The hardworking shopkeeper or sharecropper would have our ethical sympathy on grounds of exploitation but not domination2. This does not help us provide independent reason for an interest in exploitation theory, of course, which is the task at hand. Thus exploitation is a poor statistic for domination2 on several counts. My conclusions concerning domination2 are: (a) our interest in exploitation theory cannot be justified on grounds that it is indicative of or a proxy for domination2, either logically, or on pragmatic grounds; (b) although domination2 is prevalent in existing capitalism, it is arguably a phenomenon of second order in a Marxist condemnation of capitalism, being associated with the imperfections in writing and enforcing contracts, while Marxist arguments should apply to a capitalism with frictionless contracts. In addition, although not argued here (as my concern is not with the evils of domination2 but with the evils of exploitation), I think the analogy between domination2 and slavery is ill-founded. It is arguable that the life of the small independent producer is not so marvelous compared to that of the factory worker, that the transition from poor peasant to urban proletarian is one made willingly, even gladly, and with reasonably good information, where the erstwhile independent producer is knowledgeable about the trade-offs. I say arguable, not obvious: but it is more than arguable that no population ever voluntarily committed itself to slavery willingly and gladly. V. THE ALIENATION THEORY To discuss properly a possible justification of an interest in exploitation theory on grounds that it is indicative of different degrees of alienation,

19 47 Should Marxists we must separate alienation from, on the one hand, domination and on the other hand differential ownership of the means of production, as those issues are discussed separately under (2) and (4). An interest in differential alienation must be defended per se, even in the absence of domination and differential ownership of the means of production. Perhaps the most graphic vision of exploitation is as the extraction of surplus labor from the worker: the extraction, that is, of more labor from him than he receives back as social labor in what he consumes or can purchase with his wages. His labor is alienated from him not because he performs it for another (under conditions of domination2) but because it is labor performed to produce goods for exchange, not for use. More precisely, the goods produced are traded to an anonymous final recipient on a market, and thus labor becomes alienated in a way it would not have been were there a social division of labor but the final disposition of goods was in one's "community."(see B. Traven's marvelous story "Assembly Line" for a discussion of alienation. 22) Now if everyone started off with the same endowment of means of production and had the same skills and preferences, but all agents produced goods for a market, there would be alienation of labor in this sense, but not differential alienation, since it can be shown everyone would receive back as much social labor in goods as he alienated in production for the market. Exploitation can be said to exist in a market economy when some people alienate more labor than 22. B. Traven, The Night Visitor and Other Stories (New York: Hill and Wang, I973). In the story "Assembly Line," a Mexican Indian has been offered a huge sum of money, more than he has ever dreamed of, to mass-produce little baskets for a New York department store, which he has formerly made only in small quantities for the local market. The New York buyer is astonished that the Indian is not interested in the proposal. The Indian explains: "Yes, I know that jefecito, my little chief," the Indian answered, entirely unconcemed. "It must be the same price because I cannot make any other one. Besides, sefnor, there's still another thing which perhaps you don't know. You see, my good lordy and caballero, I've to make these canastitas my own way and with my song in them and with bits of my soul woven into them. If I were to make them in great numbers there would no longer be my soul in each, or my songs. Each would look like the other with no difference whatever and such a thing would slowly eat my heart. Each has to be another song which I hear in the moming when the sun rises and when the birds begin to chirp and the butterflies come and sit down on my baskets so that I may see a new beauty, because, you see, the butterflies like my baskets and the pretty colors in them, that's why they come and sit down, and I can make my canastitas after them. And now, sefnor jefecito, if you will kindly excuse me, I have wasted much time already, although it was a pleasure and a great honor to hear the talk of such a distinguished caballero like you. But I'm afraid I've to attend to my work now, for day after tomorrow is market day in town and I got to take my baskets there."

20 48 Philosophy & Public Affairs they receive from others, and some alienate less labor than they receive back. Why might alienation be a bad thing? Perhaps because one's time is the only really valuable asset one has, and production for the market is considered to be a waste of time. Perhaps because productive labor for oneself or one's community is what constitutes the good life, but the use of labor to earn revenues solely to survive, not to produce for others directly, is a prostitution of a deep aspect of the self. Thus alienation might be bad, and differential alienation might be unjust or exploitative. (There are certainly other forms of alienation in Marx, but this kind of differential alienation appears to be the only kind for which exploitation as the unequal exchange of labor is an indicator.) Any ethical condemnation of differential alienation cannot be a welfarist one, in the sense of Amartya Sen,23 based only on the preferences of individuals. For I will outline a situation where agents with different preferences start with equal endowments of resources and voluntarily enter into relations of differential alienation (i.e., exploitation) as the way to maximize their utilities. Consider two agents, Adam and Karl, who each start off with the same amount of corn, which is the only good in the economy and can be used both as capital (seed corn) and as the consumption good. We have the same technological possibilities as in the model of Section 2. Farm: 3 days labor produces i bushel corn Factory: i day labor plus i bushel seed corn produces 2 bushels corn Adam and Karl each start with '/2 bushel of corn, and each will live and must consume for many weeks. (Recall, a week is the time period required in each case to bring com to fruition, although the amount of labor expended during the week differs in the two processes.) Karl is highly averse to performing work in the present: he desires only to consume i bushel of corn per week, subject to the requirement that he not run down his seed stock. In the first week, he therefore works I/2 day in the Factory (fully utilizing his seed corn) and II/2 days on the Farm, producing a total of i '/2 bushels, one of which he consumes at harvest time, leaving him with '/2 bushel to start with in week 2. Adam accumulates; he works '/2 day in the Factory, utilizing his seed, and 41/2 days on the Farm, producing 2'/2 bushels gross. After consuming i bushel, he has i '/2 bush- 23. See, for a definition of welfarism, Amartya Sen, "Utilitarianism and Welfarism," Journal of Philosophy 76, no. 9 (0979):

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